Toby Moskovits, 37

Heritage Equity Partners, Chief executive

Photo: Buck Ennis

By Daniel Geiger

For Toby Moskovits, good things sprang from bad timing. In 2008, the year of the economic crash, she founded Heritage Equity Partners to manage money for the wealthy, but what they really wanted was her help in exiting soured real estate deals in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The property novice took a look and instead saw opportunity.

"Having a fresh perspective on the market allowed me to see how strong it was," said Ms. Moskovits, a Brooklyn native who earned her M.B.A. at Bar–Ilan University in Tel Aviv.

She quickly began establishing her own empire, buying up distressed properties that have since soared in value. This spring, she will kick off work on her biggest project yet: a 400,000–square–foot Williamsburg office complex.

Meanwhile, her 150–room Williamsburg Hotel is already rising nearby on super–hot Wythe Avenue. Last year, she bought a 2–acre lot in nearby Bushwick. There she will soon break ground on another hostelry, one set to include retail space and, possibly, office space for the hip tenants streaming into Brooklyn.

Correction: Toby Moskovits is 37. Her age was incorrect in an earlier version of this article originally published online March 29, 2015.

Fast facts

Toby Moskovits eats lunch at the desk, has an iPhone, wears high heels and a miniskirt, is scattered, in a creative way, uses social media once a day.